Peter Carl Faberge's goal of escaping from the overloaded European style was reflected in his choice of materials. Such simple materials as good as wood and sem-precious hardstones were processed in the workshops. Even gold was seldom used by Faberge in its purist form but was instead coloured by adding minerals. To achieve special colour effects, red-gold surfaces were often covered with yellow gold. The silver that the workshops incorporated into the jewellry was polished, chased, embossed, or sometimes even oxidised. By using platinum, which had just been discovered, they also played a pioneering role in the world of jewellery production.

The workmasters of Faberge reached particular heights in the art of guilloche enamel. In this type of decoration, regular patterns or ornaments of straight or curved lines are engraved mechanically into the surface of the material. In the 16th Century artists lathes were still being used, but the time of Peter Carl Faberge, special guilloche machines had lons since taken over. The noble creations of the house of Faberge utilized both round-cut and straight-cut engine-turning. The former is suited primarily for decoration of hollow bodies and curved syrfaces. In the workshop of Victor Mayer, the traditions of Peter Carl Faberge are carried on primarily throuth the use of moire-guilloche (water line patterns).

Much of the anual production on Faberge was dedicated to animal miniatures made from hardstone.Peter Carl Faberge had a weakness for this type of stoneworking, which as 'netsuke' and is so popular in Japan. The stone engravers he hired perfected the netsuke technique within a very short time. Even today, the gems used by Faberge come from the Region around the German town of Idar-Oberstein, a traditional center of stoneworking. Several new egg objects, such as the Elephant egg, are made even more beautiful by the inclusion of small netsuke masterpeices.

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